Abandoned Sand Castles
by Lady of the Lilles
Summary: Liz Parker is left a shadow in the dark dream that has envolped Max's life for the past seven years after her death.
1. Abandoned Sand Castles 1/8

Abandoned Sand Castles  
by Lady of the Lillies  
  
I have this reoccurring dream of me and Liz Parker at the ocean. When I open my eyes I can still feel the  
wet sand between my toes.   
  
When it begins, all is dark. I float barely over the water's surface. Sometimes I go under and the breath   
is taken from me. Other times, arms and legs outstretched, I drift worthlessly. At the mercy of the ocean,   
I wait for where ever she may take me.  
  
I can feel the serenity of water around me. The waves wash over my face. They trickle down my cheeks   
and like Alice, I feel as if I am in a sea of my own tears. Which is strangely comforting.  
  
I am on a beach. It has been years since I've ever been to a beach, but if I was ever to go again, this is   
what I would want it to be like. Miles upon miles of golden wet sand, like a stairway to heaven. Where I   
walk, my footprints are filled with little pools of ocean. Cloudy water that I try to divine from.   
  
Millions of little shells litter the coast. Of all colors, shapes, sizes. Alone and waiting for someone to   
notice them. To pick them up and make them. To own them. But what they do not realize that they are   
beautiful. What a pure metaphor.  
  
Beside me, I do not see, I feel Liz come up beside me. Her skin is cold as she takes me hand. I want to   
look at her, to kiss her, but all we can do, is walk.  
  
A wind, salty and cold, whispers around her hair. The wind's fingers turn my head to look. In this   
moment, she is happy. The sadness that loomed over her like a grandmother's ghost is gone. Something   
radiates inside of her and blinds me for moments.  
  
All I can do is stand and marvel at beauty.  
  
As we walk, hand in hand, Liz bends and picks up a sea shell. I can feel it's strange feelings of being  
wanted, transfer to me. Liz feels it too because she tightens her grip on my fingers.  
  
The shell is dirty white, dull, with ridges and a small chip in the side. A sharp sliver has been claimed by   
the ocean. It is plain and blemished. There is nothing special about this shell. Except for a moment, I   
understand that it is Liz in a way. It is me, too. Then, I forget.  
  
It fits snugly in my hand as she presses it deeper. The heat from Liz's fingers surrenders to mine. She   
looks in my eyes and smiles sadly. "Have you ever seen anything more perfect?"  
  
Before I can answer I feel the ocean biting angrily at my ankles. The water slowly creeps into me and I   
shiver. Unlike the beginning, this water is greedy. It is the water that any man who has sailed fears. The  
one who holds no prisoners.  
  
I scan the ocean that stretches out forever, like the sky. In the distance, I can see a tiny figure which I   
know, is Liz. I watch, frozen, as she moves farther and farther into the water. I can feel her cold fear,   
but she continues to walk.  
  
Her face is fervor and I feel sick as she turns it towards me. Her sadness swells around her before she  
goes under. It's hands take her throat and keep her.  
  
Soon the wind brings to me her screams for help. But all I can do is watch as Liz Parker slowly drowns.  
  
  
  
I wake.  
  
Alone, in my bed with the sounds of a busy street. But the sounds of her screams and the ocean in my   
head.  
  
I wake with a flawed, plain, white sea shell in my hand. Somewhere though, in it I try to find it's  
perfection. I look until dawn.  
  
And then I remember.  
  
Liz Parker has been dead for seven years. 


	2. Abandoned Sand Castles 2/8

Abandoned Sand Castles (2/8)  
by Lavinia's Premonition  
  
  
  
"Doctor Evans?" The young nurse knocks nervously before letting the artificial light spill unto the blackness of the room. "There's someone to see you."  
  
"That's nice."  
  
Shock registers on the young girl's face. She gnaws at her fingernails for a moment before answering. "Do you want me to tell her to go away?"  
  
"No." I open my eyes slowly but the light still burns. The nurse turns her back primly as I put on my shirt and make my way to the reception desk.  
  
Isabel hasn't changed a lot since high school. Taller, angrier and blonder. Manipulative until the end. In the few moments that she can look me in the eye, I realize, whether she knows it or not, she's profiling me. At the moment, I'm just another one of her disheveled, shaky hand patients on the couch wasting her time. With a cool superior look that only psychologists posses, she smiles. "Max, you look like hell."  
  
"Thanks," I say dryly. I can find no reason in denying what I've already realized for pride. My pride is somewhere wandering the empty hallways of a place she no longer recognizes. We walk in silence until the parking lot. "Your car or mine?"  
  
Isabel grabs my keys from my hand. "I don't want you to ruin my upholstery."  
  
  
  
The restaurant is cold, sophisticated, distant and expensive, much like my sister. Across the table, she sips her tea and swirls it absently in the cup. It spills over the edges but she never notices.  
  
"What brings you here?" I nudge some of the salad that Isabel ordered for me around the plate with my fork. The strident noise it makes seems to ground her.  
  
"There's trouble." Isabel sets down the tea and although there is no need, she decides to name the wrongs with some hesitancy. "Michael."  
  
"Again?" I can't help but feel disappointed.  
  
Isabel leans in closer to me and I watch as a few strands of her hair dip into the buttery sauce of the salad. She glances around the room to make sure no one is listening and then whispers it like a dirty word. "Bar fight. He was drunk."  
  
"Again," I repeat as Isabel leans back and squeezes the sauce from her hair.  
  
Every time we have this conversation, I can fell Michael slip away from us. Every time we try and help, we seem to be pushing him deeper down the rabbit hole. Once upon a time, a time which people only remember with puzzled glances and shrugs, Michael could paint. Critics called him the next Picasso, the next Renoir or anything they could think of to try to compare and classify his work. Some got close, but none could begin to describe in words what Michael did with color.  
  
He woke up one day and his hands were shaking. A violent shuddering that the best doctors simply shook their heads and pumped him full of drugs. The Golden boy was tipped from his pedestal and broke into a million sharp and bleeding shards. The only thing that keeps him steady is alcohol. His disease is his cure.  
  
"Bail's set at a thousand." Isabel unconsciously fingers her purse. "Could be worse. It wouldn't be his first offense."  
  
"It won't be his last," I mummer.  
  
Isabel glares at me sharply and then with a hint of nostalgia behind those cold eyes, continues. "Maria came down from D.C and got her hands on four hundred from her saving account. She says the rest is our problem."  
  
"Is she still in Roswell?" I try to fit that impish grin and caustic wit in a black uniform waving her gun and badge for the world to see.  
  
"After she paid, she took the first plane out." Isabel smiles ruefully. "Then she took the next flight right back."  
  
"Wonder what Freud was to say about that?" I chuckle. Curiosity piqued, I ask casually, "Are they still together?"  
  
"You could say that." Isabel stares at me with those cold, unfeeling, frightening blues eyes that used to be so comforting. In them, she is no better then Michael or myself. "What's wrong with you Max?"  
  
Where to start? I could never hide anything from you, I sigh. I couldn't shield you. I was never good at protecting anyone. I have failed five times over. Avoiding her eyes, I mumble: "Liz."  
  
I can hear her choke on her tea. With the precision of the machine that she has become, she cleans it with a napkin and calmly sets her cup down on the saucer. Her voice betrays her though. There is warning in it. "Max..."  
  
"I know, I know. That's years ago. It's just that..." I stumble and trip on my emotions.  
  
"She is dead Max." Isabel says it as if we were talking about weather or a patient. "Liz Parker was killed seven years ago. End of story." She pulls from her purse, a plane ticket. She meets my eyes and I know that somewhere inside her, she is sorry.  
  
I take the plane ticket from her hand. Two way from Chicago to Roswell, New Mexico.  
  
She lays two twenty dollar bills on the table and stands. "We leave tomorrow." 


	3. Abandoned Sand Castles 3/8

Abandoned Sand Castles (3/8)  
Lady of the Lillies  
  
The motel is the same color as the burnt sand that the sun has lessened her   
mercy for over the years. Everything in Roswell seems to be covered in it.   
You breathe the sand in, you cough it out.  
  
I have a sudden urge to drop my bags and run as fast and as far from this   
place as I can.  
  
I can sense it from Isabel too. This is not the town that we grew up in. The   
town is dead. The streets are empty. Apathy and neglect waft through this   
place like a plague.  
  
Tentatively, Isabel knocks on the door of room fourteen and waits. The   
answer is immediate.  
  
"What do you want?"  
  
It hurts me to hear Maria's voice. What she has become, is a statue. An   
unfeeling lump of matter without reason or emotion. Frozen. Just until the   
day, she crumbles.  
  
"It's us." Isabel undoes the top button on her blouse. Even with the slight   
breeze that brought little comfort and sharp sand, it was hotter then hell.   
"It's Isabel and Max."  
  
We wait as several locks are opened and someone jiggles angrily with the   
doorknob before giving it a good kick. The door opens to a stranger.  
  
The first thing I notice is her hair. It's pulled into a tight bun at the   
back of her head. My gaze moves to the business suit and then stops at the   
gun holster. Dangling lazily at her hips, it makes me want to vomit just   
looking at it. At a closer look, her freckles are gone, along with the   
sparkle in her eye. I wish that this was all a mistake. That we would turn   
around and the real Maria DeLuca would laugh. But in this woman, I saw no   
laughter.  
  
"Come in," she says stiffly stepping aside to set us past. The room is not   
in much better shape then the outside. The decor is Spartan. Two beds, a   
dresser and a table near the only window that has four chairs where Maria   
instructs us to sit.  
  
"The chivalry has arrived," Maria says dryly. She sets the gun on the   
dresser. I can feel Isabel's tension at it's sight and I know she can feel   
mine. Maria is oblivious though. "How are you?"  
  
"Good." Isabel gets that preoccupied look in her eyes which makes me almost   
as ill as the sight of the gun. She's doing another reading. Isabel is a   
predator and searches for any sign of weakness. I can no longer understand   
my own sister.  
  
"Could be better," I acknowledge. "How's the F.B.I?"  
  
Face, now cloudy and caged, Maria shrugs. "A job like any other. I've been   
keeping my eye out for things that seem... suspicious. The division that   
Topolsky was working for was shut down years ago. Lack of funding."  
  
"That won't stop them from opening it again." Pessimism is an easy defense.   
How easy I slip into my own role. The one that I thought I had lost the   
script for.  
  
"I said," Maria snaps, "I'm keeping an eye on it."  
  
In the silence, Isabel decides. She knows she shouldn't ask but she makes a   
living out of asking those questions. "How's Michael?"  
  
"Michael." The way that it comes out of her mouth, that one word, the way   
her eyes light up and then die, it gives me hope that Maria is not   
completely lost yet. Flatly, she answers. "What little money he has goes to   
booze and whatever he has left goes to bail. They think he's a joke," she   
looks up at us. Wild eyes. "He sits in his cell sometimes and talks about   
little green men."  
  
Isabel goes ramrod straight. "Do they believe him?"  
  
Haunted look that she wears, Maria can still muster a bitter smile. "Would   
you?"  
  
As if that weren't enough, Isabel digs deeper. "Are you two still..."  
  
In this moment I hate Isabel for breaking Maria. Breaking is the word for   
it.  
  
"You know, I never understood how women stay with men who beat them. How   
they can just ignore the bruises and the scars? The screaming. It's like   
love is this drug that blinds them from reality." Maria trails off and then   
regains that look of control. "I still don't understand them."  
  
Questions unanswered but still satisfied, Isabel stands. "I'm going to   
sleep. I'll take this bed."  
  
"Room fifteen is yours. To your right." With a look of someone fairy-struck,   
Maria calls to me as I shut the hotel door. "Pleasant dreams."  
  
  
This time Liz is waiting for me. She sits calmly on a rock, and the sea, her   
gentle pupil waits at her feet. Greedy for the next lesson. Even the air is   
still as it waits for her to speak.  
  
With a feeling of intrusion, I bring my chaos and self to the rock and sit.   
It ripples because she frowns slightly.  
  
The sun reaches across the ocean to her and it's rays caress her. The warmth   
against her cold skin makes her smile. But the sun is murdered slowly by   
night and it's blood gleams and bleeds into the sea and onto Liz.  
  
Urging her playfully, the waves lap against her ankles. The need for her to   
see me is maddening. Violence swells into me as I want to take her by the   
shoulders and shake her.  
  
She senses that too and looks deep into my eyes. I immediately regret it.   
Liz, in her own way, has been beaten too. She paces the cage anxiously in   
her mind.  
  
"Things change." She shifts her gaze to the body of the sun. "Everything   
changes. Everything changes except you and me and the sea."  
  
I accept it as truth because I can do nothing else. I take her hand and wait   
until her tears dry and the sun rises. 


	4. Abandoned Sand Castles 4/8

  
  
Abandoned Sand Castles (4/8)  
Lady of the Lillies  
  
I wake up to the smell of cigarette smoke and coffee. At them moment, I   
would kill for the latter, if I knew which the latter is. I knock dutifully   
on the connecting door. "Are you both decent?"  
  
I hear Maria's dry laugh. "Quick, hide the stripper." It almost brings a   
smile to my face.  
  
Opening the door a crack just in case, I peek in. The poster girl of the   
smoking community, Maria, sits at the table, tapping her cigarette in an ash   
tray full with the rest of the pack. Isabel distastefully watches her from   
the far corner sipping on her coffee and talking on the phone. A look in her   
eye so I know that whatever battle she is fighting, she is wining.  
  
"Smoking will kill you." I take a cup of coffee and sit down beside her.   
Soon, Isabel joins us.  
  
Who says I want to live? Maria's eyes ask. Instead, she sets it down in the   
ash tray. "What did they have to say?"  
  
"We can stop by in an hour." Isabel snickers. She adopts a hick accent. "The   
sheriff had to shut her down for a bit. Seems his daughter had to be driven   
to her horseback-riding lessons."  
  
"The pleasures of small town life," Maria drawls as she picks up her   
cigarette.  
  
"Is there a decent restaurant around here?" Isabel asks as she stares   
longingly at her cell phone. A small gleam of hope rises in her eyes. "Is   
the Crashdown still open?"  
  
"Shut down a few years ago." Maria frowns slightly. Trying to find the   
vibrant place of her youth in the boarded up building with broken windows   
and chipped paint. No one cares anymore. "I flunked out of parts of Home Ec.   
that I was there for. Can't you guys use your powers or something?"  
  
Resignation. I never thought I'd admit it to her what was our mutual and   
silent agreement we had seven years ago. But there was never any need to.  
  
I tried, two years ago. A young girl came into the Emergency Room in   
Chicago. Five year old who should have been having a tea party with her   
dolls instead of dying in front of me. You should never focus on the   
patient, was the first thing you learned in the real world. Never think of   
them as more or less than that. Instead of the girl, I was supposed to see a   
bullet wound to the chest. Profuse bleeding. A lost cause.  
  
But just for a minute, I saw her. A dark haired little girl with pig tails   
that she had done all by herself. A pretty blue dress that she had picked   
out herself. Because blue was her favorite color, same as her father.   
Probably picked out the peanut butter sandwiches that they were going to eat   
at the picnic too. Messy eater, she had gotten a stain on her nice blue   
dress. But Mom explained that she would wash it out later. They must have   
walked down together, hand in hand, across the street looking for cars. But   
they never saw this coming. Not even if they had checked both ways.  
  
Merrith Hunter was in Hethrow Park with her family: Maggie Hunter, Peter   
Hunter and sister Sarah Hunter, having a picnic when someone let fire on the   
whole place. Aimlessly shooting at whatever moved. No one got hit except for   
little Merrith Hunter who had been playing near the fountain.  
  
"She loves water," Maggie Hunter explained as she paced the hospital   
hallways. "Loves to take baths. Sarah hates to take baths. Peter loves water   
too. She loves her Daddy a lot."  
  
Shooter escaped on foot. Caught latter in a bar reading the sport section.   
Drunk. He'll get off in two months.  
  
But I and Merrith have to sit alone and try to find the worlds that will   
break her parents for the rest of their lives. Their little girl was going   
to die. There was nothing that the doctors, or God, or I could do. I looked   
at that innocent face, I could help but see the person. And see myself.  
  
If that was my child, would I let her die? Would I just stand by and live   
through every day knowing that I could have done something? Selfish as I am,   
I saw it as a way to right my wrong.  
  
You can't just get on the bike. You have to learn all over again. You have   
to keep falling and falling. I kept failing and failing. The more I tried,   
the more my stomach turned cold and soon my sweaty hands were pushing   
against the middle of that little blue dress in anger. I was breaking.  
  
"What the hell are you doing to my daughter?" Peter Hunter looked a lot like   
his daughter. It was those blue eyes. Those dead blue eyes...  
  
"I'm sorry," I mumbled. Peter looked at me like some caged animal. Needing   
pity. "I'm so sorry."  
  
"Max?" Isabel places a cold hand on my shoulder. I jerk up to meet her   
concerned gaze. The mask that she wears has melted away from concern. "It's   
no problem. We'll have take out."  
  
And in her eyes, I can see the truth that she hides beneath her hate. She   
has lost her powers too. 


	5. Abandoned Sand Castles 5/8

Abandoned Sand Castles (5/8)  
Lady of the Lillies  
  
The jail is practically sanitary compared to the ones that Michael has been   
stuck in over the past years. Roswell County Jail only has that faint odor   
of urine, cheap cigarettes and even cheaper beer that dominates all places   
like this.  
  
How Michael can live like this, I don't understand. The Michael that I knew   
once said he could never stay in one place very long. That Michael has been   
dead for years. I don't understand how people can live in this life. But   
I've never had my limits tested.  
  
With a sad smile, I recognize the man at the front desk. "Kyle? Kyle   
Valenti?"  
  
He jerks his head up from the computer screen and a smile of mixed emotions   
crosses his pudgy face. "Max Evans? Isabel." He stands as doughnut crumbs   
fall to the floor. He looks guiltily at the grease he wipes from his hands   
to his dark pants. Then extends one hand to Isabel who shakes it simply out   
of necessity. "Glad to see you. It's been a while. Maria, back again. Always   
a pleasure." A rattling comes from the holding cells. Kyle nervously fingers   
his gun holster "I don't even know why you bother."  
  
Pursing her lips, Maria pounds on the counter. "We want to see Michael."  
  
A betrayal of his old self, Kyle exerts sympathy towards us. Almost   
compassion. Although an improvement on the old model, this Kyle Valenti,   
Version 2.0 begins to make me uncomfortable. He seems... subdued, tired of   
the life that is slowly tightening its grip. In a way, I miss the fire that   
was Kyle Valenti.  
  
"Are you sure?" he asks. "He worse then before."  
  
"That's fine." Maria grimly pushes her way to the back of the jail from   
where the hollering is coming from. "I've seen him much worse."  
  
We pass into the holding cells as Kyle hovers on the other side. "Just   
holler when your done."  
  
"Michael?" Maria extends her fingers through the bars to the huddled,   
shivering, dirty mass in the corner. "We're here to get you out."  
  
He shakes me from a dream, violently. Michael with his hypnotic, angry,   
bloodshot eyes. With shaking hands. With an obscure anchor that holds him   
but makes his let go of everything else. With a soul that should have been   
taking from this world long ago. I wish that he had died seven years ago.   
Because what he has become does not deserve to live.  
  
I can't bare to see him but I can't turn away. Purgatory.  
"Michael?" Maria mummers. Trying to tame to beast. "We have to get you out   
of here. It's killing you to be in here."  
  
Jerky motions, brings Michael to the bars where his face crashes into   
Maria's with harsh words. "Who says I want to live?"  
  
Inside, Maria shudders, but her stone face will allow her nothing. It's a   
little game they play. She points at me. "You deal with him. I'm in the   
lobby."  
  
Mine are not the only eyes following her out the door. Our eyes meet and the   
laughter is bitter and sharp. Happiness is as alien to us as ourselves.  
  
"You have the money?" Michael looks greedily at our bulging pockets and   
purse.  
  
"Yes. It's for bail only." I watch for the reaction I expected. Anger and   
then resignation.  
  
"Sure." Michael turns his back to us. I realize only as we leave, that he is   
watching his hands.  
  
  
  
"Six hundred in cash?" Kyle handles the money with an impartial ease.   
Although, in a place like this he probably doesn't see large sums of cash   
like this. More like petty crime worth about as much as my phone bill.  
  
"There's not an ATM in the whole town." Isabel who has been silent the whole   
ordeal lowers her eyes to the ground after watching with unease as Kyle   
undoes the handcuffs around Michael's wrists.  
  
"Small town." Kyle shrugs and gets a look in his eye. The look of power that   
I used to fear so often walking the hallways. "It was nice doing business   
with you. But for now, see you latter." He looks directly at Michael. "I   
know I'll be seeing you lately."  
  
Maria lays a gentle hand on Michael's shoulder. He looks at it questionably   
for a moment, shakes his head and follows us to the car.  
  
Like an attentive snake watching the mouse run into the whole on the wall,   
Kyle smiles.  
  



	6. Abandoned Sand Castles 6/8

Thanks to all the kind folks who have been giving feedback. You've brightened many a day.   
  
Abandoned Sand Castles (6/8)  
by Lady of the Lillies  
  
  
"Little big." I critically eye Michael in my clothes. The fit is a bit loose   
but it's better than having him smell like he went swimming in the Budweiser   
factory. "The bed on the left is yours."  
  
"Thanks." Michael blinks. Almost like it's the first time in his life that   
he's said that word and meant it.  
  
Isabel knocks nervously and enters alone. Michael notices immediately.   
"Where is she?"  
  
"Packing." Isabel takes Michael's old clothes and stuffs then in a garbage   
bag. "She's going back to D.C tomorrow. She has business."  
  
His laugh makes me want to run and get Maria's gun off the counter. "I'm   
sure. She always does this. I'm some sort of charity case that she can feed   
and give money to once a month. Like she can buy me a pair of shoes that   
will make her guilt go away. It doesn't. But at least someone gets a free   
pair of shoes."  
  
Someone can be more selfish than you Isabel, I mused as I watch her as she   
glares coolly at Michael. Stalking up to him, she shoves the garbage bag   
into his stomach. "I don't know why she even bothers."  
  
Michael looks at the bundle in his lap and barely notices Isabel's   
departure. The clothes... still have the scent of alcohol on them... The   
beast that so many of his friends had warned him about... Awakens... Inside   
of him, she writhes and gnaws at his thoughts... He needs a drink. "I'm   
going out. Max?"  
  
The shell. Which had once been the pure white in my hands, was now red. Like   
the small tributary coming from Liz's forehead. Bury it. Bury her, the voice   
says to me. The voice sounds strangely like Isabel's which I loath as much   
as I listen. Red. The voice calls again.  
  
"Max?" Michael leans into my light and a shadow comes over the shell. "You   
look like you need a drink."  
  
Anger is the fire that climbs my throat and waters my eyes. But it makes me   
strong. Anything else is a weakness. Even Liz. There must be sacrifice.  
  
I let the shell go with such force that it shatters against the wall and   
it's shards go flying. One embeds itself deeply into me hand. A small   
dribble of blood comes from it's lair. Finally, I look at Michael. "Yeah. I   
could use a drink."  
  
  
After extensive research, Michael had concluded that there where three main   
types of drunks.  
Mean drunks, which he was a part of, where the worst to be around. Usually   
men that had awakened the beast inside of themselves. Those who got into   
fights, beat their wives or take their anger out on anything or any wall   
that might be in the way.  
  
There were funny drunks. Usually one in a crowd of people that wandered into   
a bar looking for a good time. This type of drunk was more like a drug   
addict. They wanted the feeling of power. Or belonging. Who, at there limit,   
would do just about anything when they reached their high. Michael had seen   
enough of these type become very annoying, very fast.  
  
The third kind of drunk was the type of drunk that Michael could not   
tolerate under any circumstance. If one sat down beside him, he would leave   
the bar. The pathetic drunk. Those who drank to forget. Those who get drunk   
to remember. Who are only pathetic because they actually had something to   
complain about. Michael couldn't take them because they made you feel bad   
about drinking. Made you feel good about yourself and your meager problems.   
That was not what Michael wanted to accomplish when he was drunk.  
  
Max Evans was easily one of the most pathetic drunks Michael had ever   
encountered.  
  
The bar was half empty or full, which ever way you look at it, Michael   
notices. Beside him, Max sits surrounded by an audience of empty glasses.  
  
Staring at the bubbles floating up from his glass, Max smiles   
philosophically. "It's really depends. If you poured it, it would be half   
full. If you just drank it, it would be half empty."  
  
Michael glances over at Max. "That's great."  
  
Max frowns. "I just figured out the answer to life's greatest question and   
all you can say is great?"  
  
"That's really great." Michael takes a look around. Smoke hangs like a heavy   
fog over the place and several people too indifferent for lung cancer play   
loom around the pool table.  
  
"It was my fault, you know." Max says quietly. Michael turns at the tone of   
voice. The wistful, slightly angry way pathetic drunks speak. "My fault that   
Liz died." Max turns his head slightly to watch Michael's reaction. Which is   
nothing.  
  
Liz Parker. Through the hazy fog of Michael's brain, the name comes quite   
clearly. Seven years of questions and repression comes flooding back.   
Michael feels about as sick as Max is going to be in the morning.  
  
"She was... We were..." Max's words slur together as he cradles his hidden   
face in his hands. "He shot her Michael. Shot her right in front of me. Her   
blood was so red. Red like... It was everywhere."  
She had been walking alone with Max... Sober, Michael began to remember bits   
that he had read in newspapers before fleeing Roswell. Someone had shoot her   
seven times in the head and then ran off. Never caught. She had been taken   
to hospital and pronounced dead on arrival. It was so simple. In hours, Liz   
was dead and never coming back. You could have almost said the same for Max.  
  
"She was screaming. I mean, really screaming. Have you ever heard the cries   
of someone who knows that they are dying? Can you even imagine it?" Max   
looks at him with haunted eyes.  
  
"No." Michael shakes his head and Max smiles.  
  
"No. You can't. But what was the scariest part, was when she stopped   
screaming. I was scared Michael. It's wasn't my fault, I couldn't help her.   
I had to protect the others. Couldn't get caught. There were people. They   
got blood on their shoes. So I let her die. I stood there and let her die."   
Max's body began to heave up and down with sobs.  
  
"We were walking," Max continuos when he stops shaking. "Walking down the   
street. It was that simple. All it takes is one gun in the hands of any   
child that can pull a trigger. Life is so frail. All I could do was watch."   
Max stops and looks at his hands that are so unmoving and still. "I once   
said that I wasn't God." He looks at Michael's hands. "But I made Liz live.   
And then I let Liz die."  
______________________________________________________  
  



	7. Abandoned Sand Castles 7/8

I am a lady of few words. Except for the whole bunch of them down there.  
  
Abandoned Sand Castles (7/8)  
Lady of the Lillies  
  
The ocean is a jealous lover. Her scorn is to be feared and avoided by all   
men. Caresses you sweetly as she twists the knife deeper in your flesh.   
Smiling still as you get lost in her. Whispering softly as the blood falls   
and poisons.  
  
Waves of her wrath smash mercilessly against the beach. She is like the   
mother disciplining the innocent child. Over and over again, without reason   
or pattern that I can discern.I fear that it is my time.  
  
The wind, a sullen and bitter messenger brings me her voice. I run towards   
the words. "Life is complications. Love is living with them."  
  
My sanctuary wails at it's foundations with the words. It crashes into the   
sea and on to me. Someone is laughing.  
  
I wonder what Freud would have to say about that?  
  
  
  
"What the hell were you thinking? I mean, he's a doctor?" Of all things I   
wanted in the birth of this new day, Maria's anger was not one of them.  
  
"I didn't exactly drag him there!" I hear Michael's footsteps head towards   
the shadows where he is safer.  
  
Isabel's figure eclipses the light. "Shut up. Both of you." Her touch I feel   
on my shoulder. "Max?"  
  
I try to open my eyes and then quickly shut them. "Leave me to die."  
  
Sulking in the corner of the room, I can feel Michael smile. "How's a   
feeling Maximillian?"  
  
"Like hell. You haven't called me that since high school." I roll myself out   
of the bed and try to support my newborn legs with Isabel. Michael smirks in   
the corner with graceful experience.  
  
Just waiting for an excuse to leave the scene, Maria jumps up at the sound   
of a knock at the door. Pausing only at the door to undo the locks, she   
opens it a crack. Shock registers on her face as she lets the door swing   
open. "Kyle?"  
  
The bumbling cop we met in the station is a glimmer in this man's determined   
walk. He nods to Maria and scans the room. "Good morning."  
  
Shutting the door behind her, Maria gives a worried look to Michael. His   
tension radiates in the room. The discomfort only seems to make Kyle stronger.  
  
"I want to talk to Max. Alone."  
  
Immediately we lock in an exchange of wills. Maria is the first to break.   
  
She grabs her jacket, smokes and presence from the room. "I'll talk to you   
later."  
  
In the shadows, like a cat of prey, Michael stalks out after her. He is a   
hunter, in the darkest sense of the word.  
  
Isabel is the only one to hesitate. She hovers near me and then strides   
towards the ajar door. "Don't take too long."  
  
"We won't." Then, Kyle and I are alone. I motion to the table and stumble   
into one of the chairs.  
  
Crossing his fingers, Kyle looks me straight in the eye. "I came here to   
talk to you about something that's been bothering me."  
  
Nervously, I scan my mind. "What would that be?"  
  
A strange look I can't classify creeps into Kyle's eyes. "I want to talk   
about Liz Parker."  
  
  
  
The way that Kyle Valenti looks at me is like a beaten dog. Kicked and   
thrown into the corner enough times that all it lives for anymore is the   
moment. The moment where their master turns their back. Lurking. Hiding the   
hate in their eyes.  
  
But Kyle has never had any patience. His smile is malicious. "For the   
longest time, I blamed you." The silence is calculated. Enough time for him   
to take out his gun from the holster and set it between us. "For Liz's   
death. For taking her from me."  
  
I sit and stare at the gun. How simple it is. The numbing mindlessness of it   
all. That this simple machine has replaced God for the needy and desperate.  
  
"I'm sorry." It lands on deaf ears.  
  
"No you aren't," Kyle contradicts as he takes the gun and strokes it   
absently. "Do you know that for the past seven years I have been figuring   
out exactly how to kill you? How to make you pay for what you did?"  
  
"I didn't shoot her." The dangerous aura around him turns shades to anger.  
  
"No. No you didn't." Kyle takes the gun and aims it at my temple.  
  
Cold sweat. Hot metal on flesh. No fear inside. I feel nothing. Instead I   
know the hunger and desperation for death that haunts the beaches. My   
spoiled beaches. Through Kyle, I can feel this desperation grow and swell.  
  
I look through those ruined eyes of his. "You don't want to do this. This   
isn't what should happen. Go home Kyle." I rise and then I give him what he   
wants.I turn my back.The first shot hits me in the upper back.  
  
The second, as I fall, as Kyle stands over me, hits me in the chest.  
  
The third, I remember by the look of surprise in Kyle's eye. He looks almost   
disappointed. "You're dying. You can't die."  
  
The forth shot proves him wrong. 


	8. Abandoned Sand Castles 8/8

Thanks to everyone who bothered to take a look at a story with a very vague summary and a   
very strange title  
  
Abandoned Sand castles 8/8  
by Lady of the Lillies  
  
Death is the dream that which I cannot wake. The dream that I do not want to   
wake from.  
  
In death, there is only darkness. It is resigned and undecided. It recedes   
and creeps up slowly, only to hesitantly embrace. Death is a primordial type   
of love. It flows through our veins, and we are all swayed by it's currents.  
  
In death, there are also doors. I've fallen deeper into the rabbit's hole.   
  
I'm falling farther into my own whole.  
  
I stand in front of my own. As a proverbial Alice staring at the door for   
which there is no key. But it opens anyway.  
  
  
"Something is wrong."  
  
Michael glances back at Isabel keeping an eye on the road. "What are you   
talking about?"  
  
"Stop the car Michael." Like a women on her death bed, her eyes are glassy   
with fear and death. "Stop it."  
  
With a sigh, he pulls the car over. "What do you-" He's cut off by the   
slamming of the car door. Digging his nails into the steering wheel, he   
looks at Maria in the rear view mirror. "You talk to her."  
  
Silently obeying she walks over to Isabel and lays a hand on her shoulder.   
  
He can't see what they're saying but it's obvious that Isabel is winning.  
  
"We have to go back." Looking Michael directly in the eye, Isabel took off   
on foot. Maria watches her and then turns to Michael.  
  
"It's Max." Patting her gun holster nervously, Maria gets into the back   
seat. "He's in trouble."  
  
Even before Isabel, he could sense the darkness coming. Eventually, you can   
block it out. Or just ignore it. But Isabel Evans could never ignore   
something that was a stronger than her.  
  
"Maybe," Maria pauses and bites her lips," we should go. She could be right."  
  
"She could be wrong," he shrugs.  
  
A disappointment settles in her aura. "You would let him die, wouldn't you?"  
  
Michael turns away from her fading figure as she runs after Isabel.   
Mockingly, the question echoes. "No," he lies.  
  
  
The doorknob is in my hand with no recollection of the door even having one.   
The light from the opening slowly pushes the darkness seductively out of the   
way.Then, I see.   
  
Water.   
  
Laying out and then stretched contentedly across the sand. Lapping gently on the shore.   
I want nothing more in the world, then to be one with this, so I jump.  
  
With patient hands it guides me to the beach. The sun soon dries me and   
directs me to Isabel.  
  
For the first time in seven years, she hugs me. She wraps me in her warmth   
and herself. She squeezes the darkness from every corner of me. Fills me   
with her light. Her arms bind me to her and I never want to let go of this   
moment."I miss you," she whispers as she lets go.  
  
"I missed you," I mummer. With her light behind me, I begin to walk.  
  
  
  
Although it's appearance would suggest otherwise, the hotel door is more   
resilient then first thought. Beating on the door with her fists, Isabel   
tries to test it anyway. "It's locked. We have to help him." She cries as if   
tears alone are going to open it.  
  
The only calm one of the party, Maria yells into room. "Max? Are you in   
there?" After a pause, she turns to Isabel. Softly, she tries to explain.   
  
"He probably went to go get a drink with Kyle."  
  
"No." A voice from behind makes them turn. Michael looks at them   
apologetically. "We have to help him." Placing his hand on the door, there   
came a pale green glow. The door creaks open slowly.  
  
  
  
"Walk with me." Michael is ahead of me, but I quickly fall into step with   
him. The silence is so heavy that even the waves do not dare to sing.  
  
Looking out on the sunset gives him an almost Buddhist calm. An air of   
meditative reflection softens his features. The anger in his eyes is gone   
and replaced with the sun.   
  
"You know," Michael says pensively, "we all died seven years ago."  
  
He stops and sits. In slow fluid motions, he traces symbols in the sand.   
  
"But, I guess it started long before that."  
  
I stoop down to join him. We watch the waves, watch the sunset and watch Maria.  
  
The surfs swirling lazily around her ankles, she reaches down with bare   
hands and scoops up the sand. On the edge of the coast, she is building a   
sand castle.  
  
When ever she gets to the lonely towers that over looks the ocean, the water   
comes up greedily and invades. Flowing through and taking. Until all that is   
left is sand.So she starts again.  
  
The irony is not lost on me. I turn away but Michael keep a obscure vigil.   
"When did it begin?"  
  
Michael smirks sadly as we watch Maria kick down her own castle down. The   
sand goes flying and ripples. What once was the wall reaches up for   
salvation from the ocean. "Once upon a time, Maximillian, like all other   
great tragedies."  
  
"I wouldn't call it that." But the look from Michael makes me wish I had   
never said that.  
  
"What would you call it?" He turns back to Maria.  
  
She has built a castle to her knees. In the face of despondency, one   
solitary sand castles guard the balance. It is beautiful. Maria walks away.   
Not bothering to look back when the waves claim it.  
  
Michael sighs. "It shouldn't have ended this way though." He stands and   
walks towards the castle.  
  
  
  
Kneeling in the pool of blood, Michael absently traces it's path. Then,   
looks away. Some things, no one should see. Thank god, Max's eyes are closed.  
  
Screaming is all that Isabel is capable of at the moment. "Max! You can't   
leave me here! You can't leave me here alone!"  
  
Alone, Michael thinks dully. Whether she knew it or not, Isabel had blocked   
him completely. He was nothing, her problem, her burden. It conforts   
Michael, in a selfish way.  
  
Standing and facing away from the body, he came eye to eye with Maria. A   
pale blue fury in her eyes.  
  
"Do something." Maria's commandment broke his trance.  
  
"What?" He dumbly looked into her fevered eyes.  
  
"Do something. Cure him. Make him better. Now." Maria's scales were tilting   
towards darkness again.   
  
"Save him Michael. Or can you handle that?" She   
motions towards his shaking hands.  
  
"I can't do this Maria." Looking at the body, he's all to aware of the   
shaking of his hands. "I'm not God."  
  
"Do something!" Maria screams. Throwing her fists on his chest repeatedly.  
Controlcontrolcontrolcontrolcontrol... The same shaky hands that had once   
loved her, wanted to hit Maria. Knock her back to the woman that once, he   
had felt something that he thought was love.  
  
But before he can move, one looks makes his stop. Isabel looks up at him.   
With mercy the only thing keeping her standing. "Help him, Michael." A   
selfish hope strings through her voice. "Help Max."  
  
  
"I'm sorry." My foot crashes through one of the walls of the sand castles.   
Liz looks up and smiles.  
  
"It's all right." The apology seems to amuse her. I watch her hands nimbly   
building the tower of the castles. As it is finished, she takes my hand. The   
sand on the fingers rubs off on mine. The horror in my eyes makes her head turn.  
  
The beach is littered in abandoned sand castles. All waiting and bowing to   
the mercy of tide. The only armor from the darkness of this world is sent   
alone waiting to die.  
  
Liz follows my glance. "There is nothing that we can do to help them Max.   
It's inevitable."  
  
The crack of her voice makes me leave her arms. "You can't just leave them   
there to die."  
  
She stares out with tears in her eyes. "You can't stop the tide."  
  
And suddenly I am just another sand castles being built by loving hands. I   
can feel Liz's love around me as soft and warm as the setting sun. Her hands   
leave me quietly as I watch her walk away.  
  
I am just another sand castles waiting for the inevitable.  
  
The water swirls around me. Invading, conquering my senses until there is   
nothing left of me. But an arm reaching out for salvation.  
  
I wake.  
  
I rise.  
  
Michael is crying with Maria's arms wrapped around him and my blood on his   
hands. He looks to me. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."  
  
I lay down.  
  
And I drown...  
  
...drown   
...drown 


End file.
